Where is the balance between the prevention and control of epidemics VS the protection of information?



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Source: Beijing Commercial Daily

Original title: Where is the balance between prevention and control of epidemics VS protection of information?

After being diagnosed with the new crown, the personal life of Zhao Moumou, a 20-year-old girl in Chengdu, was left under the private mirror of hundreds of millions of netizens. While it sparked public opinion, it also sparked public concern about the protection of personal information during the epidemic.

On December 9, the Chengdu Chenghua District Police issued a report. At approximately 23:00 on December 7, Wang (male, 24 years old) posted a photo related to the “Chengdu epidemic situation and Zhao activity tracking and identity information” on his own.Micro ExpoForward it, seriously infringing the privacy of others and causing an adverse social impact. Currently, Wang has received administrative punishment in accordance with the law for violating the relevant provisions of the Law of the People’s Republic of China on Punishments of the Public Security Administration.

In fact, similar incidents have occurred many times during the epidemic. For example, after Yang, a resident of the Tianjin Kanhaixuan community, was diagnosed in November, detailed information and specific itineraries for Yang and his family quickly circulated on social media.

The police investigation of similar cases is not the first. On February 21, Ningbo announced a new case of coronary pneumonia. Prior to this, detailed information about the patient and his 15 relatives was posted on the local WeChat group. According to the investigation, the local auxiliary police and village cadres obtained this information during their work and disseminated it through WeChat. Subsequently, the local Public Security Bureau imposed an administrative detention for 6 days and a fine of 500 yuan.

Prior to this, five doctors from Yunnan province took advantage of the work to take advantage of their work and privately photographed patient information and spread the Internet. Four of them were sentenced to administrative detention for 10 days and fined, and one was fined.

Flow adjustment is a key link in epidemic prevention and control. But why after transfer, cases and even relatives’ information cannot always be adequately protected? Leakage of patient information cannot prevent people fromLenovoDuring the period of the epidemic, daily code scanning and form filling, etc., seemed to be a risk of information leakage everywhere.

Where is the balance between prevention and control needs and excessive demand? Can personal privacy and public safety be balanced? Will Big Data Bring Personal Privacy Leaks? How to establish a complete data protection system? With these questions, a journalist from the Beijing Commercial Daily interviewed 4 experts in different fields to find ways to protect personal information during the epidemic.

  Expert voice

  Information gathering should follow the “least necessary principle”

——Zhou Zhaofeng, Managing Partner of Fei Shi Law Firm

Big data is used to analyze general trends and, although it is based on individual information, it is not necessarily personal information. According to the definition of the concept, personal information can identify a specific person. Only information that cannot be traced to a certain person can be used for big data analysis, so there is really no conflict between big data and personal privacy.

But why are our personal privacy leaks so common in epidemic prevention and control? The central issue is to collect and use legally. The collection of personal information should follow the “least necessary principle”, and the scope of the collection should be well controlled. For example, it is very common to complete personal itineraries during epidemic prevention and control. So is it necessary to collect in this list if I am a party member and my ethnicity? In addition to government collection, many units and communities also collect information, but it is also doubtful that they will have the ability to protect this information after collection. Rights and obligations correspond to each other. Once the information is collected, there is an obligation to protect it.

In addition to collection and use, the destruction of information also deserves attention. Whether it is itinerary information collected through small programs, apps, or completed on paper, it will be useless after up to 6 months. So the destruction of this part of the information must also be taken seriously. We need a complete set of processes: why to collect, how to collect, how to store, who uses it, and how to destroy it. On the contrary, all links are risk points for information leakage.

The epidemic can easily become an excuse, but it is precisely during this period that the law must be respected and personal information must be used in a legal and reasonable manner. Currently, the legal content on the protection of personal information is scattered in various laws, and a large amount of personal information is constantly circulating without a legal basis. The “Personal Information Protection Act” has brought them together and the draft has clear restrictions on the collection of information by the government, which is an improvement.

Right to reject illegal collection requests

—— Zhang Xiaorong, Dean of the Deepin Technological Research Institute

In order to promote further development of the digital economy, China has begun to increase the protection of personal information in recent years. For example, in 2020, many laws and regulations were enacted to protect people’s privacy.

However, due to the deep-seated influence of traditional culture and local customs, people do not pay enough attention to personal privacy, especially among the middle-aged and elderly. In my opinion, the central issue now is to awaken people’s attention to personal privacy, strengthen the protection of information, the urgent need to popularize the law and further increase the awareness of society about the protection of personal information .

Where is the boundary between the disclosure of personal information and public safety? I believe that the information disclosed should protect personally identifiable information, restrict collection, and prohibit arbitrary disclosure of key information that can be used to identify or locate citizens. The party that collects the information undertakes and assumes the corresponding responsibilities for the storage and use of the information. The collected part of the information should have the right to know the use of the information and the right to reject illegal requests.

Need for industry segmentation laws and regulations

——Zhang Kun, Fintech Industry Expert

The topic of personal information protection that has been raised for discussion itself is an improvement. It shows that everyone has realized that privacy protection is an issue that needs attention, but the core is that you only care about your own privacy or your own interests, not the privacy and interests of others, that is, the indifferent right to privacy.

Such incidents of privacy leakage during the epidemic prevention process have occurred many times and the source should be related to the epidemic prevention departments, hospitals and other institutions or agencies. Key information can only be controlled by key departments and key people, and its dissemination should be prohibited. However, current laws and regulations are general in nature, and there are no subdivided laws and regulations for each industry, much less an emergency such as the epidemic.

Therefore, after the “Personal Information Protection Act” is implemented, it is necessary for each industry to formulate its own industry laws and regulations based on the characteristics of the industry, and severely penalize from the beginning and serve as a warning to gradually cultivate everyone’s awareness of privacy protection.

The privacy leak does not favor the general situation of epidemic prevention

——Liu Yuanju, Research Fellow at the Shanghai Institute of Finance and Law

Incidents of patient privacy breaches happen repeatedly, and the key is that there is little accountability. In fact, it is very easy to find who is the first to submit this image or file. If there is no punishment mechanism, it means there is no responsibility and it will definitely happen again in the future. In fact, similar to the disclosure of personal privacy, in addition to infringing on the personal rights and interests of patients, it is also detrimental to the overall epidemic prevention situation. Protecting personal information is an important part of the overall situation against the epidemic. Only when well protected can the patient reveal the specific whereabouts for the first time, otherwise, once the concealment is done, the consequences will be very serious.

I think that during the standardization of epidemic prevention, the concept of “wartime” should be mentioned less. Of course, the epidemic prevention department has entered the “wartime” state, but if a province and city enter the “wartime” state, then it seems that everyone else can sacrifice themselves for this.

Now I still have to scan the “health code” in many places. But in reality, the “health codes” have been formalized many times, I think it is necessary to clarify the exit mechanism of these codes. In addition, there are many “local policies” that need more attention. Decisions at the provincial and municipal level are relatively comprehensive and will take into account the issue of citizens’ privacy. However, for example, the notification decisions of some local police stations are relatively less exhaustive and prone to leak personal privacy.

Beijing Business Daily Reporter Tao Feng Wang Chenting


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